Hard Things

I've decided to try something new.  Sunday Scriptures.  Every Sunday I find myself pondering some great truth that I'm truly thankful for.  I feel like my understanding and testimony have been strengthened.  And then we get home from Church.  And the week starts.  And pondering becomes less and less as the week goes on.  So this is my attempt to keep a little more.  Plus writing always helps me solidify my thoughts and understand what it is I'm really thinking. 

In 1st Nephi when Lehi tells his sons to go back to Jerusalem to get the plates from Laban, Laman and Lemuel complain.  Lehi reports that they tell him "it is a hard thing which I have required of them," and Lehi responds "behold, I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord."  And then Nephi comes in all his glory to tell us that no matter what the Lord commands, He also prepares a way that we can keep or accomplish the commandment (1 Ne 3:5-7).  I've read this passage of scripture A LOT of times and in the past I've always thought Lehi was just telling Laman and Lemuel to buck up and be men.  If the Lord commands it, it means it's not hard.  After all, He even provides a way to accomplish it. 

Last week when I read this scripture, and then again when it was mentioned in Sunday School yesterday, I realized how wrong I was.  Lehi never denies that what is being asked is hard, he only corrects the misunderstanding that it was him doing the asking.  Nephi never jumps up and down and shouting for joy that the Lord has asked one more easy thing of them.  He never even says that the Lord will make it easy, he only says the Lord will make it possible. As I've continued in First Nephi I've been noticing how many times a bunch of stuff happens and then it says that it all came to pass while Lehi was living in a tent.  I think that's included so we realize that what they were doing wasn't easy, it was hard!  Over and over the Lord asked hard things of Lehi and his family.  They lived in tents wandering in the wilderness.  They didn't know where they were going.  They left their home and friends.  They were hungry.  They had babies IN THE WILDERNESS LIVING IN TENTS.  Nephi had to build a boat, he had never done that before.  They all had to be brave enough to get on the boat Nephi built even though he had never built a boat before.

It's easy to get down on Laman and Lemuel and think they're just a bunch of whiners who were too wimpy to leave their cushy life in Jerusalem.  But when I think about it, I probably would have whined too.  Maybe I wouldn't have gotten all violent and tried to kill my brother, but that's for another day.  The point is, the Lord asks us to do hard things.  And when He does, we have two choices.  We can either whine and ask why life is so hard, or we can have faith and ask the Lord for understanding.  Every time Nephi prayed to understand a prophesy or a commandment, he received an answer.  His faith never faltered through the hard things because he asked the right questions.  "I can do hard things" is a pretty common saying, but I don't think I can do hard things.  I think with enough faith and the help of my Savior I can do all that He asks of me, together we can do all things.